


A Quiet Moment Of Thought

by JunoWrite



Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, LITERALLY, Late Night Conversations, One Shot, Possibly OOC, because they are the same person lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunoWrite/pseuds/JunoWrite
Summary: "An evening alone and unbothered. A rare occasion to be sure, especially with the exhibition on the horizon. A quiet moment.But a quiet moment, in reality, was simply an invitation for his thoughts to speak freely without distraction, loud and clear. A quiet moment to any onlooker was cacophonous in his mind. Even more so, he was dead tired. He would have been asleep by now if he hadn’t been so easily distracted. This afternoon, there was…...nothing. No one to bother him, nothing to worry about but himself. He yawned. It was a deadly combination, sleepiness and quiet, and an overactive mind. "
Relationships: Edward Hyde & Henry Jekyll
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	A Quiet Moment Of Thought

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is basically me projecting some of my questions and theories regarding these two onto a back and forth conversation. Excuse any errors, it's very late and I'm very tired but I'd like to post this anyways.

An evening alone and unbothered. A rare occasion to be sure, especially with the exhibition on the horizon. A quiet moment.

But a quiet moment, in reality, was simply an invitation for his thoughts to speak freely without distraction, loud and clear. A quiet moment to any onlooker was cacophonous in his mind. Even more so, he was dead tired. He would have been asleep by now if he hadn’t been so easily distracted.

_‘Bloody hell, are you just going to stand still all afternoon? '_

...And not just because of the usual suspect.

Out of the corner of his eye, Edward Hyde made a face at him from the glass cabinet. Henry let out a breath, breaking the silence with his footsteps. He moved to sit behind his desk instead of standing by the door; It was a habit to stand there, waiting, with all of the people that come through his office regularly.

Yet, this afternoon, there was…nothing. No one to bother him, nothing to worry about but himself. He yawned. It was a deadly combination, sleepiness and quiet, and an overactive mind. He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the desk. His paperwork was all complete and on schedule. He wasn’t particularly inclined to drinking. He wasn’t about to sleep, regardless of how much he felt the effects of neglecting it.

The most irritated growl sounded over his shoulder, disembodied and disinterested. ‘ _If you’re not going to do anything tonight, can I get a head start on my own fun? There’s an interesting spot across the Thames I wanted to investigate and I don’t want to miss…’_ Hyde prattled on, and Henry organized his desk, carried away from the conversation by a thought.

_Fun_. Fun was a ‘Hyde Thing’. Henry Jekyll wasn’t allowed to have fun, it would ruin his reputation. Fun was a rather subjective term, though… he quite enjoyed his work. The society was great fun. Was it really something that could be divided so cleanly into good or bad? 

Though Hyde’s tirade droned in the back of his mind, he followed his train of thought, resting his head on steepled fingers. What else couldn’t be easily divided…?

He had yet to determine if the split was truly perfect, that is to say, to split him into perfect halves: one completely composed of everything he loved about himself, which was good, the other an amalgamation of everything he found most undesirable in himself. Evil.

Another thought occurred to him. If this is true, then, perhaps he isn’t all...good. Are there aspects of himself that he adores, while others despise? Are the good and evil in his mind only subject to his own opinions of himself? What did he truly create when he concocted the accursed chemical mixture? What was he?

_‘Uuuaaghh’_ Came a retching voice from seemingly everywhere. _‘ I know that face’_ Hyde appeared on the surface of a reflective glass on his desk. _‘That’s the face you make when you’re thinking about something. It’s horrible. If you don’t stop thinking so hard you’re going to go daft.’_

Henry’s eyebrows furrowed. His writing hand twitched. He should be recording this in a journal.

_'Dr.Jekyll?’_ Prompted the apparition. Henry didn’t respond immediately, lost in thought. _‘Dear god it’s already begun.’_ His faux concern snapped him to attention.

He grumbled in response, pushing pens across his desk. “Do you think you are a bad person?” 

_‘Hmm?’_ Hyde looked up and scoffed ‘ _Oh, I dunno, probably.’_ For a long stretch of time, it was quiet again. _‘ You’re prissy and reputable all the time, which means I must be everything which isn’t. Which means I get to have fun whenever I want and you get to do paperwork and other boring important things.’_

Of course, this makes sense. Why wouldn't it? It was simple logic. But...

He felt stuck on one line, one idea. Something that had been nagging at him for a while though he hadn't had the right words to say it. 

“I’m not.”

_‘Not what?’_ Hyde spat.

“Reputable. All the time.” Henry turned away, facing the opposite wall of the office. “You know me. How many times have I slipped on my own idiocracy? How many times have I broken down in anguish in this very room? How is it possible,” He turned to face Hyde, “for me to feel this bad? How is it possible for me to feel like the bad one?”

_‘...When it’s supposed to be me.’_ Edward’s face was set in an odd way like he wanted to grin or smirk, but something was holding him back. Something troubling. _‘That's what you were going to say, right? You know what, Dr.Jekyll. I don’t feel “Bad” all the time.’_

He pressed his hands against the glass of the case closest to the desk, leaning in to speak.

_‘I just feel good.’_ The way he said it sent a chill down his spine. It was unsettling, cold. It was absolute.

_‘I don’t care. I don’t care what I do, who I do it to, or what happens afterward. I can’t, really, and it’s fantastic.’_ He snickered to himself, his usual smirk smattered across his face. _‘You inherited that. The human morality that I don’t seem to have.’_ Like a wisp of smoke, he drifted across the wall of reflective surfaces. ‘ _And it’s eating you alive that you know the consequences of your actions, and that you care about them. It’s not that you’re bad, you just feel bad because you’re a dazed bastard whose only crime is never being good enough for your own sky-high expectations.’_

“That was almost a nice thing to say.” Was all he could think of in immediate response.

_‘Thank you, it clearly wasn’t my intention. Let me out?’_ Hyde prompted, the entire conversation all but pushed aside.

He was tempted to drop his facade, as he always was, but didn’t. He wanted answers, and the only way to get them was to keep asking questions. His eyelids drooped, his entire body protesting being awake.

He continued, turning his chair towards the reflection. “Am I good, then?”

_‘Not by my standards. Too boring.’_ Hyde scoffed. _‘Maybe by your own impossible standards. Though I guess not since you felt pressed to ask me.’_

“Then how can we be sure what we represent? How did we determine what good and evil are? How do we know?” He wasn’t even asking questions to Edward anymore, voicing his thoughts openly as his mind raced.

_‘You have to have been hitting the booze again, there is no way you could come to such a headache-inducing conclusion unaided.’_ The brash statement hurt but did nothing to stop his ideas from multiplying. His questions just created more questions. It was like the fire and pursuit of knowledge that drove him to science in the first place had sparked again, pulling him towards answers he still couldn’t see. _‘The reason we are decidedly good and evil is that it just is. You might as well ask why you’re Henry Jekyll and I’m Edward Hyde!’_

“Why...that’s an excellent question. Why did I become Henry Jekyll if neither of us is truly he who made the chemical mixture in the first place?”

_‘Oh my god just stop,’_ Edward griped.

“Or,” His eyes, though laden with sleep, widened. “Are we both he? Maybe we aren’t so different.” He continued, mumbling. “Perhaps there is a grey area between black and white. That we didn’t quite. Understand. Before.” He was finding it difficult to stay awake.

_‘You inherited every fucking ounce of madness, and yet_ I'm _the crazy one.’_ No response. _‘Jekyll?’_ Nothing. _‘Hello?’_ He appeared to ooze from the mirror as a sluggish fog, snapping near-translucent fingers in front of Henry’s nose. He was out cold. 

_‘Damn it, you absolute headcase. How am I supposed to get out now?’_ All he could do was stew on Henry Jekyll’s tired ramblings until the man woke up, vaguely wondering if any of it meant anything at all.


End file.
